Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sunday Night Dessert: Mavs Lose in Warm Alaska, Doc's Team Puts on Another Show

Disappointing weekend for the Mavs this weekend in Alaska as they were shut down once again by Chad Johnson, currently the #3 goaltender in the nation. In four games against UNO, Johnson has allowed 2 goals in 255 minutes as three of the games went to overtime shootouts. No time for the Mavs to sulk, as next up is #9 Miami.

Anybody else catch former Mav Bill Thomas on NBC's "Game of the Week"? He wore a microphone in today's Penguins/Rangers game, and even got in a plug for his old college team.

Impressive defensive performance by the Husker basketball team last night against Kansas State. It's easy to dismiss Doc Sadler's four (and at times, five) guard lineup, but with the defense that they're showing, they'll be competitive against much of the Big XII. If Sadler can ever get his roster squared away, Husker hoops has a bright future if they continue to show that same kind of effort.

The World-Herald's Tom Shatel looks wistfully back at the Danny Nee era in today's paper. Problem is that for as great as the early to middle 90's were for Husker hoops under Nee, the final Nee years weren't anything to be proud of. Between player walkouts, awful fundamentals, and a me-first style of play, the final years of the Nee era weren't terribly watchable. Barry Collier had plenty of faults, but his teams weren't like the final farce of the Nee era.

Not that I necessarily blame Shatel for wanting to remember the good days of Nebraska basketball under Nee. I have plenty of great memories of heading to a sold-out Devaney Center to watch the Huskers upset a highly ranked Big 8 opponent (i.e. Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, etc.). I remember Dickie V telling fans in Lincoln to watch out for an incoming freshman quarterback from Florida named Tommie Frazier.

Is Doc Sadler recapturing some of that magic? Hard to say, but I like the way his teams play.

(BTW, if you are looking for some great Husker basketball coverage, check out HuskerLibrarian's coverage over at CornNation.com)

I did catch something interesting with Nebraska's "other" division 1 basketball team. I gotta admit, I don't follow Creighton basketball much at all. It's not the coach or the team; they do a fine job in their mid-major conference year-in and year-out. Dana Altman does it right for the most part. Case in point is the case of Cavel Witter. He got into a shouting match with several Southern Illinois players after last week's game, but after thinking about it overnight (and a talking-to by Altman), he regretted his actions and actually apologized for starting it. I give Altman the credit here; I don't think Altman had to tell Witter to apologize because he didn't have to tell him to. Altman has set a standard for how his team plays and acts, and all that needed to be done was to remind his player that what he did wasn't anywhere near that standard that he wants his team to follow. And thus the apology.

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